By Sandra Schulman Expect the unexpected when it comes to Miami’s wild and woolly annual Art Week. This year featured torrential floods, an unprecedented act of violence in the main Basel tent, astronomical sales, and women artists (and dealers) in the spotlight. Mega-collectors have been shifting the dialogue for years now in Miami —as the enormous wealth and power they … [Read more...]
Looking back: 2014’s best in film
After another summer of superheroes, sequels and special effects, Hollywood got serious and released enough films of quality for adults to fill a 10-best list. You have to wonder how the industry can churn out so many exceptional movies in November and December, and so much junk in the first 10 months of the year. To land on the list, a film has to open in South Florida during … [Read more...]
Looking back: 2014’s best in theater
On balance, 2014 was not a bad year at the theater in South Florida, with a couple of blockbuster touring shows, two startling takes on classic musicals at the Maltz Jupiter and a few worthy productions from many of the area’s other resident companies. Here is my undeniably subjective list of the 10 shows I enjoyed the most during the year. Fiddler on the Roof (Maltz … [Read more...]
Sundays: Looking for answers
By Myles Ludwig We seem to be sloshing through a media debris field. The globalization of media, the diversity of delivery platforms and their consequent overarching narratives of mystery, fear and grief involve us all within reach in news stories that seem so close, yet are so far. Those of us not directly affected by catastrophic events are nevertheless drawn into the … [Read more...]
T.D. Allman: Looking feistily at Florida, past and future
T. D. Allman, a raconteur of rare qualities, begins a telephone interview with a story about his dad. An officer in the Coast Guard sailing patrols out of Tampa during World War II, Allman’s father captured an Italian tanker on its way north from Venezuela. “Of course, the Italians were delighted to surrender,” Allman says. “He let them keep their sidearms, but he took the … [Read more...]
Looking back: Booming Art Basel full of energy, surprise
When the Art Basel Miami Beach week ended Dec. 8, more than 75,000 people had visited the show in the Miami Beach Convention Center, and many of those 75,000 had visited the five main fairs that have sprung up around it: Art Miami, Design Miami, NADA, Pulse and Untitled. There was plenty of star power, too. At Art Miami’s opening Dec. 3, a horde of no less than 13,500 VIP … [Read more...]
William Kentridge, on looking, drawing and knowing
“Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting,” Willem DeKooning said of his fellow abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock. “He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.” In the same way, William Kentridge has revolutionized the practice of drawing. Using charcoal on paper, repeatedly erased and redrawn, as the vehicle for … [Read more...]